BALANCING EQUATIONS
Lorraine Pettigrew George Washington High School
3535 East 114th Street
Chicago, IL 60617
1-312-646-4860
OBJECTIVES: To learn to balance simple equations by the trial and error method.

MATERIALS: 1 inch paper squares

STRATEGIES:
Divide an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper into 1" squares. Label with symbols as
shown below:
You should end up with the following numbers of squares:
8 - Mg, Na 20 - O
16 - H 8 - N, P, S, C
Another set of strips should be cut in sets of double squares and lettered as
below.
Use 6 O2
6 H2
Balance the equations using the squares you made to represent the atoms in
the equations below. Make the number of each atom on the left equal to the number
of the same atoms on the right.
Calculations
Insert the coefficients on the lines
1. ___ Mg + ___O2 = ___MgO